A great sports title for Wii, but too complicated for me, the casual football viewer.
First off, as mentioned before and time and time again, the Wii and Madden go hand in hand. There is a motion for every thing, be it a stiff arm, the snap, or smacking a ball away from a receiver, most actions are done via gestures. And it feels smooth, oh so smooth... with one exception. I never could get my player to catch balls via hand motion. Wether bad timing, facing the wrong way, or just doing it wrong, i don't know.
Sound is held tightly together, with proper and clear sounds coming from the Wii-mote, a good licensed soundtrack, and good commentary. Also, nothing environmental gets in the way, which is always thankful in my book.
Graphically, player faces look somewhat distorted and blocky, but animations and flybys run smoothly with no drop in frame rate. Nothing exciting, but more than what I had seen on previous football games on Nintnendo systems.
My biggest gripe about the game is that when you try to play franchise mode, you're thrown a bunch of stats to keep track of and deals to make to obtain players and keep morale on the team high. While this may be a football fan's dream, it is WAY too deep for me to care about. All I want to do is play each week and get the team to the super bowl. I don't care how much money I'm paying someone, just let me play the actual game.
Also, do not confuse this with Madden 08, as this version doesn't have online support. It does, however, use the weather channel on your Wii to give real-time representation of stadiums on the field based on your current conditions.
Football fans, rejoice, the football simulation game you've dreamed of is here, but casual fans may want to stick to the mini-games and training sessions as well as the "play now" option.